LumberJocks, A Threat To Bloggers?

I’ve been blogging since 2004, running an anonymous blog on my own little patch of electronic real estate on this world wide web. So when I started getting interested in woodworking, it made sense to me to chronicle my ups and downs on my own website/blog. Thus Adventures in Woodworking was born.

And so I did what most good bloggers do when first starting out: I visited other blogs. That’s a good way to get your name and website out there and to make friends along the way. I had very few readers, so I posted sporadically. Then one day, I emailed Christopher Schwarz a link to a Roubo-style workbench I made with my son’s Lego set, and he posted it to his site. My stats went through the roof (compared to the 5 hits a day I was getting), so I started posting a little more regularly.

And then I joined LumberJocks.

I received 10 welcome messages within a day of joining. In my 11 blog entries posted here so far, I have gotten over 100 views on most of them, and no fewer than 4 comments on each one – not to mention personal messages within LumberJocks via email. I’m getting valuable feedback on how to be a better woodworker and am making friends at the same time.

Who needs a personal website? I’m now considering shutting Adventures in Woodworking down, since LumberJocks seems to be meeting all the needs I had when I started the site.

Blog in both places. It increases the reach of your message. LJ is great, and Martin’s continuous updates to make the site better is also great, but throwing all your eggs in one basket has been a universal questionable tactic.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

It seems to me that your private blog is your presentation to the outside where your LJ blog is your presentation inside. From inside you get feedback and encouragement so that you can put your best foot forward on the outside. Keep them both, since you’ve got two different audiences.

Yeah, LJ makes it so easy to blog here – and guarantee like minded traffic, it’s hard for me to keep motivated to stay on top of the other one… granted I can always double post so friends and family can comment there, without needing to register here…